Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

Garden club meeting, saving the pollinators, reducing pesticide use

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012, at 7:31 AM

I better get the announcement mentioned up front, because I feel a crusade coming on and it could get ugly. Weed'em & Reap will meet this coming Friday February 24th at 7:00 PM in the New Century Chinese Restaurant on Madison street.

As a reminder, this is open to all, there is not dress code, no requirement to eat, (although...it is tasty) and it is not a formal event. We will be discussing what is being called the "pocket gardens" up on the square, so if you have an interest, be there. :-)

cherokee2 added a link on another post regarding the loss of honeybees and other pollinators in England. Well, it is a problem here too and many of us have probably noticed the lack of bees in our gardens.

Why do we want to do that? Most of us gardeners and all farmers know that this is how the majority of our plants are pollinated. This is how fruit bearing trees and vegetables produce their bounty.

Without pollinators, we could have a sudden food shortage of epic proportions! It might have been 40 years ago, but when we in rural Tennessee can see the reduction of pollinators, something is happening.

This is not the end of my crusade, but my work day is already calling, so....I'LL BE BACK!

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My work day is already going but the blog is calling me. Actually, it was a call from a local garden club asking if THIS year I would please do a presentation on organic growing.

They have been asking for several years and I always had something scheduled but this year I set aside the date a year ago, so... I really needed to commit, which I did.

So why am I bringing that up here? Because I believe gardening should be orchestrated WITH Nature not against it and I believe we have strayed a LONG way off from that track.

This part of the attack that is occurring on our honeybees and other pollinators. Yes, there was the tracheal mite infestation for domesticated honey bees and other natural issues, they will always exist but I believe we have been bringing this on ourselves and nature by assaulting it with all of our "quick fixes", CHEMICALS.

-- Posted by stevemills on Tue, Feb 21, 2012, at 7:45 AM

I'm all for cutting down on chemicals--wish my neighbors felt the same way. I rarely use them but bees are scarce in my yard. I'm adding plants attractive to them.

-- Posted by jbillswms on Wed, Feb 22, 2012, at 5:14 PM

looks like I'm gonna miss tonight. Car decided it's tired and it's get up and go has got up and went. Not sure what's wrong with it.

-- Posted by craftin_mom on Fri, Feb 24, 2012, at 9:52 AM

Uuhh, you check the gas tank? Just kidding, good luck. I was going to ask you to bring that pepper you have been raisin'.

jbillswms, the neighborhood gardeners is one that I am afraid of since we do not have that many crop farmers around here who would do large, wholesale spraying.

I would suspect that there are hundreds if not thousands of folks spraying that stuff around their home each year and thinking, "what harm can little old me do?" Well, apparently it is affecting much more than they think.

Understanding nature would go a long way to helping to preserve it. Years ago I used to destroy most wasp nest around the house. My brother has a life endangering reaction to bee stings so I understand his concern, but our family doesn't, so why was I doing that?

I watched and saw wasps killing harmful insects and flies all day long and learned that except for the sting, they are actually beneficial. There are people who pay money to bring parasitic wasps into their garden to control all sorts of harmful insects.

Once someone sees those rice shaped attachments appear on the tomato horned-worm, let them be. The worm has stopped feeding and the babies that hatch will lay more eggs on more horned-worms.

Spray insecticide and it will kill the beneficials along with the horned-worm and someone will have to continue spraying. AND, there are more beneficial insects and bees working the garden. Spray and they have been killed too, including the honey bee.

Most insecticides are non-selective. Meaning they kill everything. Bhopal, India is one of the banner references for what that same stuff will do to humans. Google the two words and see what pops up the the very first entry on the very first page.

Ever heard of Sevin insecticide? It is probably in many of our shops and garages right now. That is what they were making in Bhopal. Do we wear masks when we spray or dust it around the yard? We need to, along with your pets, neighbor's kids, etc.